Chris Whoever loves correction loves knowledge, but he who hates reproof is stupid.

To the maximum extent practicable, the Federal Government shall plan missions to accommodate the space transportation services capabilities of United States commercial providers. US law http://goo.gl/YZYNt0

The headquarters of ESO, who own HARPS, is in Garching Germany and so Der Spiegel have probably found a leak from there. So wouldn't surprise me if true, it's not the type of discovery that is easy to keep quiet.

Btw I don't know if this thread should be merged with the Pale Red Dot one.

Yep, but Proxima Centauri is a red dwarf, and so it's Goldilocks zone is small and close to the star. Any Earth-sized planet in the zone will be tidally locked, which makes the sun-side a lot warmer than average, and the dark side a lot colder. Any atmosphere would constantly rush around

Why would atmosphere do that? On a tidally locked planet, thermal changes over time are *less* pronounced than on Earth.

Quote

and the volatiles would get stuck in cold traps on the far side.

We have volatiles stuck in a giant cold trap on our South Pole. Not a problem as long as not all of them are stuck there.

Yep, but Proxima Centauri is a red dwarf, and so it's Goldilocks zone is small and close to the star. Any Earth-sized planet in the zone will be tidally locked, which makes the sun-side a lot warmer than average, and the dark side a lot colder. Any atmosphere would constantly rush around

Why would atmosphere do that? On a tidally locked planet, thermal changes over time are *less* pronounced than on Earth.

The atmospheric circularisation is nothing to do with localised thermal changes, but thermal gradients.

The Hubble observations show that it has winds that howl at the speed of sound from the day side that is hot enough to melt iron — soaring above 1500 degrees Celsius — to the pitch black night side that sees temperatures plunge to a comparatively cool 500 degrees Celsius.

M dwarfs tend to be active, with spots and flares, and hence significant short term variability issues in both luminosity and spectra. It will be interesting to see how the authors dealt with the activity, if this report turns out to be true.

They monitored Proxima with other telescopes simultaneously to get photometric measurements on the magnetic activity so it can be distentangled from the doppler signal, https://palereddot.org/the-signal/

Yep, but Proxima Centauri is a red dwarf, and so it's Goldilocks zone is small and close to the star. Any Earth-sized planet in the zone will be tidally locked, which makes the sun-side a lot warmer than average, and the dark side a lot colder. Any atmosphere would constantly rush around and the volatiles would get stuck in cold traps on the far side. The twilight band might be livable, assuming any of the volatiles stay in a zone where it's not too warm, and not too cold, for liquid water.

True, but any planet with a sufficient atmosphere may be capable of transferring heat sufficiently to allow the planet to be at least somewhat habitable. A 1997 study, for example, suggested that a planet may need only be 0.10 atm to be sufficient enough to do this.

M dwarfs tend to be active, with spots and flares, and hence significant short term variability issues in both luminosity and spectra. It will be interesting to see how the authors dealt with the activity, if this report turns out to be true.

Only for the first billion years of their existence after that they calm down somewhat.

Proxima Centauri is an active flare star - right now (about 4-6 billion years into its existence). The smaller the star, the more long-lived the flare phase. And Proxima is almost as small as stars get...

But lets see what the paper actually says. Right now its all rumors and speculation. A potentially habitable world next door could indeed be a very strong incentive to try (unmanned) interstellar flight.

If this is true, I predict a huge interest in interstellar travel to be renewed. Unlike anything we've yet seen.

If true, hopefully it at least creates the impetus to start building telescopes that can give us a better look at planets around nearby stars. Imagine what chemical signatures of life could do to build interest for exploration.

Yep, but Proxima Centauri is a red dwarf, and so it's Goldilocks zone is small and close to the star. Any Earth-sized planet in the zone will be tidally locked, which makes the sun-side a lot warmer than average, and the dark side a lot colder. Any atmosphere would constantly rush around

Why would atmosphere do that? On a tidally locked planet, thermal changes over time are *less* pronounced than on Earth.

Quote

and the volatiles would get stuck in cold traps on the far side.

We have volatiles stuck in a giant cold trap on our South Pole. Not a problem as long as not all of them are stuck there.

Think of a jet engine. The temperature and pressure are constant throughout, yet it's a very active system with lots of mass flow.

It's not a bad thing for such a planet though. If in the habitable zone, you'll have vapor constantly flowing from the light side to the dark, and rivers flowing the other way...

Can't find the other tread on this topic, but here is news that ESO may have found a planet in the habitable zone of Proxima Centauri. Profound implifications if true. Supposedly will find out later in August. I've also had someone on Twitter confirm the rumor from his sources.

Chris Whoever loves correction loves knowledge, but he who hates reproof is stupid.

To the maximum extent practicable, the Federal Government shall plan missions to accommodate the space transportation services capabilities of United States commercial providers. US law http://goo.gl/YZYNt0

From what I heard, it wasn't the Pale Red Dot team who reported the finding.

Logged

Chris Whoever loves correction loves knowledge, but he who hates reproof is stupid.

To the maximum extent practicable, the Federal Government shall plan missions to accommodate the space transportation services capabilities of United States commercial providers. US law http://goo.gl/YZYNt0

But yes that would be hugely profound. I predict that if this is really a true, confirmed discovery, there will be an interstellar mission (probably robotic) launched within many of our lifetimes.

Edited to add: since the Pale Red Dot and the Hubble telescope were looking for this planet too I suspect there will be a good confirmation of this if it's really out there. There was a "gravitational lensing" alignment around Proxima Centauri that was supposed to help with finding planets in 2014 and earlier this year as I recall.

« Last Edit: 08/14/2016 04:36 AM by Bubbinski »

Logged

I'll even excitedly look forward to "flags and footprints" and suborbital missions. Just fly...somewhere.